


Milkshakes and Confessions

by calenlily



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22603270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calenlily/pseuds/calenlily
Summary: It's about a year after Sunnydale when Buffy and Faith cross paths one night in some no-name town.(Post-Chosen, ignores comics.)
Relationships: Faith Lehane/Buffy Summers
Comments: 8
Kudos: 90
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Milkshakes and Confessions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Haywire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haywire/gifts).



After Sunnydale, Buffy sticks around long enough to help the gang set up their new HQ in Cleveland, then takes off on her own. She criss-crosses the country without much sense of direction, reveling in the newfound freedom. Officially, she's helping to identify newly-empowered Slayers and arranging to get them to Cleveland for training or setting them up with resources where they are.  
  
Unofficially, she needs a break. She needs space to find herself. For years the Scoobies have blown up at each other only to bury their grievances without really resolving them because they needed each other to survive, and the rifts have grown progressively larger over the years; she still loves her friends, but it will take time for the accumulated wounds to heal. For the first time in her adult life, she isn't tied down to the Hellmouth or by the weight of her responsibilities. For the first time since she was called, she feels like her life is hers to control.  
  
  
  
She’s been on the road for most of a year the night she winds up in some no-name town a little south of Boston and gets in over her head while checking out the nightlife. It's only an ordinary nest of vamps, but she misjudged just how many there were. Nothing she couldn't get out of on her own, she has many times before, but she's struggling a little when suddenly she doesn't _need_ to do it on her own.  
  
"Think fast, B!"  
  
Automatically she raises a hand to intercept the stake thrown in her direction, neatly plucking it from the air and plunging it into the heart of the vamp she's facing. When she whirls to take on the next attacker, Faith is there guarding her back.  
  
“I see you’ve finally learned to carry your own stakes,” she says over her shoulder.  
  
“I see you’ve gotten sloppy,” her companion retorts.  
  
It's far from the first time she's been blessed with unexpected company on patrol; she's met more than half of the baby Slayers that way, and a few freelance demon-hunters besides. But there's a particular rapport with her oldest sister Slayer that she's never found with anyone else. Whether fighting with (or against) each other or on the dance floor, their bodies naturally seem to move in sync. _Two Slayers, no waiting...._ The rest of the nest goes quickly, after that.  
  
"Thanks for the assist," Buffy says, catching her breath.  
  
The dark-haired Slayer shrugs, but one side of her mouth quirks upwards. "Hey, I was in the neighborhood."  
  
  
  
Four am, and they're tucked into a corner booth at a Denny's, pigging out on burgers and milkshakes. Buffy's been to a lot of Denny's since she started roaming the country; it's a reliable option for late-night food anywhere across America.  
  
Her blood is still up from the fight, adrenaline coursing through her veins. Across the table from her, Faith is all black leather, red lips, and wicked dark eyes; she's overly aware of the other woman's proximity.  
  
 _Isn't it crazy how slayin just always makes you hungry and horny?_ The words come back to her as they have so many times over the years. She'd fought so hard to deny their truth at the time.  
  
"I used to envy you, you know," Buffy confesses.  
  
Faith's expression is disbelieving. "You told me to my face that you thought you were better than me!"  
  
"Because I had to convince myself that I was." She sighs. "Those days, I did a lot of lying to you about things I couldn't admit to myself."  
  
"Like what? You were miss goody-two-shoes, with your perfect friends and your perfect family and your perfect Watcher; what could you possibly have to envy about a fuckup like me?"  
  
"Your freedom," Buffy says simply. "I had my people, and I loved them, but they were ready to jump down my throat in an instant if I was ever anything less than the perfect daughter or the perfect sister or the perfect Slayer. I felt like I was constantly living on a knife edge trying to live up to everyone's expectations. You lived life on your own terms."  
  
"I would have given it in an instant for a tenth of what you had," Faith admits, one truth for another. Buffy never would have imagined a day would come that they could be so honest with each other. But maybe it shouldn't be so surprising; her sister Slayer seems truly committed to her repentance, and she really had come through for them those last days in Sunnydale.  
  
"Maybe so, but it sure looked simpler to me. You could afford to connect to the more primal parts of our Slayer nature, to acknowledge that we're as much creatures of the night as the things we fight. You could appreciate the thrill, the rush of it. I didn't know if I wanted to be you or just wanted you."  
  
"Now I _know_ you're putting me on," Faith drawls. "Not funny, B." She covers it quickly, but there's a flash of hurt in her eyes. She thinks she's being mocked.  
  
"I mean it," Buffy says sincerely .  
  
"You hated me! You never did anything but push me away."  
  
"I didn't know what to do with you," Buffy counters. "You had me twisted up in knots. I was sure I was straight, and I was so messed up over Angel...." She's still a little messed up over Angel, to be perfectly honest, and probably always will be; it stings a bit that she knows Faith is in and out of LA these days, while Buffy still doesn't trust herself there. But that's an old pain, and she's used to living with it now. "And yet you made me want things that I couldn't, that I shouldn't ... that I still do a bit." Somebody stop her, she was babbling worse than Willow.  
  
Faith leans in across the table, casually invading Buffy’s personal space. For a moment she thinks her sister Slayer is going to kiss her, but she only reaches over to steal a fry from Buffy’s plate. “Play your cards right,” the brunette says with a wink, and licks the salt from her fingers.  
  
“Travel with me a while?” Buffy offers before she can think better of it.  
  
“What the hell, why not?” Faith grins. “You and me, girlfriend, it’ll be like old times.”  
  
“Not exactly like old times, I hope,” Buffy says with a laugh. The future seems to spread out before her, full of promise and possibility.  
  
“Not _exactly_.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Never An Easy Way](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27469171) by [calenlily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calenlily/pseuds/calenlily)




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